


The snow must go on

by Janice_Lester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-05
Updated: 2012-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janice_Lester/pseuds/Janice_Lester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets a chance to relax.  Briefly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The snow must go on

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 'sensation play' square of my 2012 [](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[kink_bingo](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) card. Beta'd by [](http://ellethill.livejournal.com/profile)[ellethill](http://ellethill.livejournal.com/)

 

Dean doesn’t get to do this often. A life on the road, man; there are just some luxuries it doesn’t supply. He can’t remember the last time he had a good long soak in a bathtub and not a quick and perfunctory shower in some motel with unpredictable temperature and shit pressure; can’t remember the last time he took a swim for the pleasure of it rather than to save someone’s life. So the fact that their current pretext as temporary therapy assistants at a rehab hospital puts them in the vicinity of an indoor, heated pool, in Minnesota, in December? Is a perk he’s not likely to forgo. Tomorrow, he and Sam are rostered to help out with the hydrotherapy group, which means getting in the pool and encouraging folks to move around as much as possible while ensuring that their floatation aids stay in place and their heads stay above water. Work. Fun, but work. Tonight, though? Tonight, therapy is long over for the day, and off-duty staff are allowed in the pool. Not that any of the real staff seem keen to take up the offer. Right now it’s just Sam, swimming smooth, fast lengths like some asshole coach will yell at him if he takes five whole minutes to just fool around in the water. Fine, whatever. For his own part, Dean’s going to _savour_ this.

The pool enclosure is warmer than elsewhere in the hospital, of course, but it’s still not exactly _hot_. But there’s steam rising off the water, and the air’s heavy and damp with it. Outside, the snow drifts are deep enough to obscure the bottom third of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Dean tosses his towel onto a handy bench, toes off his dollar store flip-flops beneath it. Takes the long ramp down into the water (hey, the hoist thing is cool, but Sam would laugh at him for using it).

His toes meet water, and it doesn’t feel that warm, but by the time he’s taken another couple steps and is standing in water up to his knees it feels _hot_. All the hairs on his legs seem to have caught tiny bubbles. It’s kinda pretty. Dean sighs, already feeling the glorious pull of lethargy. A few more steps, and he’s up to his waist. Yeah, that’s _good_.

The pool is shallow at this end, doesn’t even reach his armpits. So he stretches out on his back and just fucking _floats_ , bobbing slightly, pleasantly, with the waves Sam’s olympic efforts are making. Shuts his eyes when the overhead lights seem unfairly bright.

Man, he’s liking this job so far. This morning, he was assigned to the physical therapy gym, where his function was basically to fetch and carry, and then to be all supportive when people succeeded in lifting more weight than they could yesterday, or rolling over _both_ ways on the therapist’s plinth, and, in one case, standing up on shaky legs for the first time since a seriously scary neck injury. This afternoon, he’d been on the occupational therapy upper limb group, tossing a ball back and forth with a kid who’d had a brain injury, then having an in-depth chat about awesome vintage motorbikes while helping a dude work out how to make his newly-gimpy hands turn screwdrivers and operate torx wrenches. Not a bad way to fill some hours until monster ganking time, huh?

He can feel the water everywhere, between his toes, lapping at his jaw, supporting his back. It caresses his balls, makes the legs of his swim trunks billow and flap. He turns over, makes a few lazy strokes breaststroke just to feel the illusory lightness of his body and extra power of his limbs. Under water sounds are muted, changed. His heartbeat is audible, or is it his pulse? Whatever. He’s not a stickler for details like Samwise.

“Dean!”

 _Typical._ Speak of the Devil…

Dean pushes upright, rubs at his face before opening his eyes. “What?”

Sam comes striding towards him. The angle of the pool bottom is obvious as his shoulders clear the water, then his biceps. By the time he stands by Dean he looks absurdly out of scale, a bare-chested giant in a paddling pool. He has that slightly constipated look that means he’s unhappy about something but is trying not to show it.

“Sammy? Did the mean pool make your pretty little hair all wet?”

“Dean. I know what we’re up against. I worked it out—the strange noises, the weird bite marks, the smell of vanilla. You get the silver, I need to go find a live insect and check an incantation.”

“Right now?” he whines, before he can help himself.

“Yeah, why not? We can have this thing all wrapped up and be eating shitty takeout food by midnight.”

“Aw, Sam, you do know the way to my heart.”

Sam rolls his eyes, turns, and splashes away with all the refined grace of a prize walrus.

Dean heads for the ramp as slowly as possible, determined to enjoy every second since leaving tonight will mean no hydrotherapy session tomorrow, and who knows when he’ll have a chance like this again?

 _Maybe soon,_ he decides. _After all, doesn’t every hospital have its ghosts?_

 

***END***


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